Microsoft and Department of Justice overseers will meet in mid-February to monitor potential antitrust issues around Microsoft's next major Windows release.Although a
first Longhorn beta release is still a number of months off, it's not too soon
to begin considering whether the next version of Windows might violate antitrust
concerns. Plaintiffs who settled their antitrust case with Microsoft in 2001
will start evaluating Longhorn's compliance in mid-February.
The U.S. Department of Justice and a
handful of state governments settled their antitrust case against
Microsoft in 2001. As part of
the settlement, the plaintiffs and an appointed technical committee have been
charged with monitoring Microsoft's compliance with the settlement.
On Tuesday, the plaintiffs filed their
fourth of the six-month joint status reports requested by the U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia. In it, the plaintiffs noted that they will
hold the first of their briefings with Microsoft in mid-February on how Longhorn
will comply with terms outlined in the final antitrust judgment.
"Plaintiffs have prepared a list of
topics that relate to the final judgments that plaintiffs wish to track as
Microsoft progresses in its development of Longhorn, enabling early detection
and resolution of any potential areas of concern," according to the status
report.
The plaintiffs provided this list to
Microsoft, and the company has agreed to brief them regularly on these topics,
the report said. The briefings are expected to continue throughout the Longhorn
development and test cycle, according to the report.
Longhorn client is expected to go to
external beta testers in the second or third quarter of this year, according to
sources. Microsoft is expected to ship the final release by the third quarter of
2006.
Read more here about the Longhorn
delay and how it's affecting developers.
The joint status report included a
number of updates on other Microsoft monitoring efforts.
Since the last full status report,
filed July 9, 2004, regulators have received 23 complaints involving Microsoft's
compliance with the final antitrust judgments. But the plaintiffs found all 23
complaints to be non-substantive.
On the Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2)
front, in terms of how Microsoft's most recent service pack deals with competing
middleware and defaults, the plaintiffs have found some areas for concern,
according to the report.
Read the full story on Microsoft
Watch: Antitrust Task Force to Examine Longhorn
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